Abstract

Community-generated media is the real-world equivalent of “user-generated content” online. As our major media begin to roll out into our streets via wireless networks, handheld devices, and public displays, an exciting opportunity arises for the personal and social potential of these media to foster a "Renaissance 2.0" within our cities and community spaces. Ambient urban media still follows a broadcast paradigm (like TV), whereas the primary dynamic of public space is social (like the Internet). Humanity's participative nature will make it possible for communities to collectively create vibrant, hyperlocal identities for themselves through media. Think of CGM as a “strange loop” where communities generate media that generate community.

Vogt will introduce the CGM program currently under way with the Mobile MUSE Network in Vancouver. The network has designed a mobile services platform to enable the staging of collective media experiences streamed between handheld devices and public displays. A pair of showcase projects explore "a tale of two cities"—the remarkably parallel aspirations of the Whistler ski resort and Vancouver's downtown eastside, each seeking to tell its own story with mobile media.